Law Student Garlinger Plans Return to Classroom to Teach on Free Speech Issues

By Jason Casell

      While many who graduate today are looking forward to stepping out of the classroom, Patrick Garlinger can’t wait to return—in a different role.
      Garlinger, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Washington University with a Ph.D. in Spanish, worked as an assistant professor of Spanish at the University of Iowa and Northwestern University before coming to NYU’s School of Law and plans to teach constitutional law with an emphasis on freedom of speech issues.
      “Constitutional law is essential to understanding our civil liberties and the sort of rights we enjoy as citizens,” Garlinger says. “Because I had a career in language, teaching Spanish, I have a real sensitivity to how government can control or restrict what we say.”
      Garlinger is a Furman Academic Scholar, part of a select group of students who show particular promise and interest in becoming legal academics. The program includes a full-tuition scholarship, plus summer research funding and support and training for a career in teaching. In addition to receiving close faculty mentoring, Furman Academic Scholars may attend faculty colloquia, workshops, conferences, and other intellectual events at the law school or the University. They are expected to produce a major piece of original scholarship and are given an opportunity to present this work to the other scholars and selected faculty.
      Garlinger, who was an articles editor on NYU’s Law Review, will publish a note in the October issue on free speech and the Patriot Act, and he is working on articles concerning the “official English” government workplace and the limits of First Amendment protection for crime-facilitation speech.
      After graduation, Garlinger will clerk for one year for U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York, followed by a one-year clerkship with Judge Robert Katzmann of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
      As a future educator, Garlinger was inspired by several law school faculty members, particularly his principal mentor, professor Cristina Rodríguez.
      “She is both amazing in her knowledge of the material and in her ability to really inspire students to participate,” he says. “That’s the sort of professor I would really like to be one day.”